Hunter Biden due in court to face nine tax charges

US President Joe Biden's son is due to make his first appearance in a California federal court to enter a plea on nine tax charges.

Hunter Biden was indicted last month on three felony and six misdemeanour counts of evading $1.4m (£1.1m) in taxes.

Mr Biden, 53, could face up to 17 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

He has also been indicted on federal gun charges, and has pleaded not guilty in that case.

Mr Biden is expected to plead not guilty in the tax case when he appears at Thursday afternoon's arraignment in Los Angeles.

The 56-page charge sheet says that between 2016-20, Mr Biden made more than $7m in gross income from business dealings in Ukraine, and related to connections from Romania and China.

Prosecutors say Mr Biden "wilfully" failed to pay his taxes between 2016-19 to the Internal Revenue Service and instead spent his money on personal extravagances.

"Between 2016 and Oct 15, 2020, the defendant spent this money on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes," it says.

The charges span a period when Mr Biden was addicted to alcohol and crack cocaine.

He wrote about this extensively in his memoir, Beautiful Things, saying he had used substances to cope with grief following the death of his brother Beau in 2015.

Since then, Hunter Biden says he has become sober.

His defence attorney, Abbe Lowell, said his client had long ago paid his tax debts.

Mr Lowell is also arguing that this is a purely political prosecution because of his client's surname.

Thursday's court appearance only adds to Mr Biden's legal troubles.

Federal prosecutors have been investigating his finances since 2018. Over the summer, the president's son was close to a plea deal.

Investigators were also ready to agree that a gun charge against him would be dropped in two years if he stayed out of legal trouble.

But the agreement collapsed under scrutiny from a judge.

As a result, Mr Biden was indicted in Delaware in September on three charges related to his illegal purchase of a firearm in 2018, while he was battling substance abuse.

Though the case is taking place 3,000 miles from the White House, and though President Biden is not implicated in the charges, the cases add to the legal cloud hovering over the 2024 US presidential election.

Mr Trump, the Republican frontrunner, also faces the possibility of criminal trials this year over allegations of mishandling classified documents and election interference.

An October opinion poll by the Associated Press indicated a significant portion of US adults believe Joe Biden may have been involved in his son's dealings.

The White House says no evidence has been presented to link the president to Hunter Biden's business activities.

Nevertheless, the ongoing legal battles involving the Biden family add to the political turbulence expected in this election year.